Menu

This is where we will gather to eat together, cook together, play and paint together, share family life and stories, read God’s word and share what God is doing around the world and how you can be part of it. I’m glad you’re here.

I want to introduce to you a friend

The internet has turned from a place that only crazy people lurked around on to a place where you can connect with amazing people you otherwise would not have met.

Through a friend I worked with at Hume Lake Christian Camps, I was “introduced” to her friend Kara. She was a woman my age in Colorado. 4 kids. Married happily to a pastor. Cute hair. Great taste (you can tell a lot about a girl from photos).

So in a few clicks on my laptop, I landed on her website. “Mundane Faithfulness” was the name of it. I liked her already. She’s trying to live out her life, most of which is mundane (can I get an amen from those of you who just put your groceries away from Costco?)…in a way that is marked with integrity. Faithfulness.

So as I kept reading back a few blog posts, I realized that she was smack dab in the middle of battling cancer.

Kara and her family

For those of you who are about to hit that X on your screen because you don’t like sad stories, please don’t.

I am with you. I hate depressing stories. This is not one. This is a story of HOPE like no other. We need a stories of HOPE in a world of people giving up left and right. We need to know that there are real people, with real lives, living on this side of heaven in horrible situations, in a way that is different. Really different, and points to a way so above the emptiness we fear.

Scared of horrible situations? Have a fear of emptiness? You don’t need to. Watch Kara. Ok, so still with me? Keep reading.

This is a woman with her heart so devoted to her husband and children and friends. And this is a woman whose eyes on Jesus. Jesus. Like He’s real. She can understand that somehow as she desperately wants to stay and see her children grown, that she knows she can trust Him with all of it. She knows and believes that this life is not the end. Like for real. Like Jesus is not a figment of a bunch of delusional Christians imaginations.

You want to see what makes a Christian different? Watch Kara deal with this.

You can read her blog and see that her eyes are set on Him, that He is near her. In fact, walking through all this with her. Why is He not healing her? I don’t know. He heals some people. Does that make Him awful? No. Is He using all our lives to tell one story that points to Him as the One we need? Yes. So somehow he is using Kara’s cancer to not only draw Kara to Himself, but he is also using her cancer to point you and me to Him.

The truth is we are all dying. We were all made by Him, and for Him. He did not desire sickness for us. Nor death. Nor pain. Or anything awful.

Which is why He sent Jesus. For you, and me, in our mess. He makes a beautiful way back to Him, and one day, all this pain will be no more.

2 comments on “I want to introduce to you a friend”

Valerie, I am visiting from Clumsy Bloggers. I really enjoy your posts. This one made me sad at first, but I love how you highlight the fact that Christians are different. Even in the sad times, we have joy. Thank you for sharing. 🙂